Sailing The Golden Rule
In February, 1958, Bigelow set sail for the Eniwetok Proving Ground, the Atomic Energy Commission's atmospheric test site in the Marshall Islands, in the Golden Rule, a 30-foot (9 m) ketch. He was accompanied by crew members James Peck, George Willoughby, William R. Huntington, and Orion Sherwood. The voyage had been deliberately and widely publicized, and while the Golden Rule was en route to Hawaii, the Atomic Energy Commission hastily issued a regulation banning US citizens from sailing into the Proving Grounds.
When they arrived in Hawaii, the crew of the Golden Rule were issued a court summons, resulting in a temporary injunction against any attempt to sail to the test site. Bigelow chose to break the injunction on May 1, but the Golden Rule was intercepted by the US Coast Guard only 5 nautical miles (9 km) from Honolulu. A second attempt on June 4 was also unsuccessful - the crew were arrested, charged with contempt of court and sentenced to sixty days in jail.
But while the Golden Rule was docked in Honolulu, Bigelow and crew had met Earle and Barbara Reynolds. Earle L. Reynolds was an anthropologist who had visited Hiroshima to study the effects of the atomic bomb on Japanese society. Hearing of the plight of the Golden Rule, Earle and Barbara were inspired to take their own nonviolent action, and later that year their yacht, the Phoenix of Hiroshima became the first vessel to enter a nuclear test zone in protest when they sailed sixty-five nautical miles into the test area at Bikini Atoll. Earle was arrested and sentenced to six months in jail.
In 1959, Bigelow published a book, Voyage of the Golden Rule which documented his journey. Bigelow's story would go on to inspire fellow Quaker Marie Bohlen to suggest the use of a similar tactic to members of the Vancouver-based Don't Make a Wave Committee (later to become Greenpeace) in 1970.
Bigelow continued to take part in non-violent protests during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and was a participant in the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress on Racial Equality in 1961.
In his later years (1971–1975), he was a trustee to The Meeting School, a Quaker school in Rindge, New Hampshire.
Read more about this topic: Albert Bigelow
Famous quotes containing the words golden rule, sailing the, sailing, golden and/or rule:
“Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walked,
As I walked in silence the transparent shadowy night,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear,
Your head like the golden-rod,
And we will go sailing away from here
To the beautiful land of Nod.”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855–1919)
“Venerandam,
In the Cretan’s phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids
Bearing the golden bough of Argicida.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Some rule out of a lust for ruling; others, so as not to be ruled:Mto these it is merely the lesser of two evils.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)